Psalm – Psalm 21 – 23

Do you remember the last Psalm we read? Psalm 20 was a prayer for blessing before battle.

Today’s Passage: Psalm 21 – 23

Psalm 21 is part of a before-after battle couplet when you combine it with Psalm 20.

The victory in battle should not be viewed as a glory for the military general.  Instead, it is a glory to the Lord and Psalm 21 is a celebration of victory from God.

I may be wrong, but I can see (or hear) David singing this couplet of Psalms many times.

When I read today’s passage, I get a mixed feeling.

Because right after celebrating a victory that comes from God, we are suddenly plunged into a Psalm of despair and abandonment.

When we read Psalm 22 – we immediately recognize the words because it has the prophetic description of the agnonizing sufferings of Jesus and His crucifixion.

You really feel for the Psalmist when he exclaimed…

“O My God, I cry in the daytime, but You do not hear;
And in the night season, and am not silent.” (Psalm 22:2)

It is one thing to feel alone.  But to feel abandoned?

And to feel that you have been abandoned by God – the single source of support that he could ill afford to lose.

This extreme sense of being forsaken and forgotten was the terror that Job experienced (Job 16:11; 30:20) and what Jesus felt on the cross (Matt 27:46).

Yet in the midst of all this despair, Psalm 22 offers us hope.  We read that God has known us from the womb (22:9-10) and that is the reason why He is well acquainted with our sufferings.  He knows us… inside out!  He is with us… even when we feel forsaken.

This is the greatness of the Christian message… we have a God who knows us personally.

And because David knows this very well, we see a remarkable transformation in the tone of his psalm.

“All the ends of the world
Shall remember and turn to the LORD,
And all the families of the nations
Shall worship before You” (Psalm 22:27)

How do you respond when everything is going wrong in your life?

David had everything going wrong for him from 22:1-18.  He felt …

• abandoned and helpless
• ignores
• despised and rejected
• ridiculed for his faith
• taunted by his enemies
• drained and on the verge of death
• surrounded by murderous mob

But like Job at the end of his sufferings, David was still able to be very sure that God was still near and capable of delivering him so much so that despite all his injuries and insults he suffered, he ended up praising God before his family, country and the entire world!

So to whom do you turn when things go ‘kaput’?

As with David, the God who created us and knows us from our mother’s womb, this God wants to join you and walk with you in your worst times.

“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil;
For You are with me;
Your rod and Your staff, they comfort me.” (Psalm 23:4)

Did you think I would forget to mention about what is probably the most famous passage in the Bible?

Much has been said for this Psalm and I thought I’d just end by sharing a few Youtube videos that I quite liked on this famous Psalm.  Tell me which is your favourite (or if you do not like any one at all).